Hey there folks! KABOOM here. Just thought I’d pop in to offer some recent thoughts I had regarding fireworks safety. Fireworks are fun, but as they say, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt! If it isn’t obvious already, fireworks safety should always be your number 1 priority. Always. We’ve been doing a lot of safety posts recently because we really cannot stress how important safety is when handling and shooting fireworks, or even just being around fireworks in general as a spectator. Recently, I was renewing one of my fireworks licenses, and every few years states require you to complete what is called “continuing education”. So here I am, sitting in these continuing education classes, and of course these classes are filled with as many scare tactics as possible. They come from a regulatory perspective, and they really want to impart upon you the seriousness of the potential damages to life, limb, and/or property if anything goes wrong. And unfortunately these things do happen. But there are many things you can do to prevent and prohibit fireworks accidents from occurring, and you should be taking all of these safety precautions every time you are even around fireworks. So I’m sitting in these classes for several hours, and I really start to think to myself, wow, these are things everyone should know! So I thought I’d try to pass along as much of this knowledge as possible, because every time a firework leaves one of our warehouses, it gets passed out of our safe, experienced hands and into the hands of you, and the more knowledge you have about fireworks safety, the less likely you’re going to run into or accidentally cause any problems.

To start off, when handling any firework such as a cake, you should not stick your head above it at all, ever. You should carry the firework in a manner where the firework could not hit the underside of your head or face even if it were somehow to spontaneously combust. This same premise also applies to your hands and other body parts! Never stick any body part above a firework! Hold the cake with its top facing upwards (fireworks will have an orientation label) and position it outwards, with your hands on its sides, away from your body - you should NOT be hugging the firework or holding it in contact with your chest while you carry it. In this scenario, if the firework were to somehow go off, it would fire a foot or so in front of you, rather than underneath (and likely through) your head. You would live with some minor injuries, no loss of limbs or life!

Before shooting the firework, you always want to be sure that it is oriented correctly. The orientation arrow should be facing up because that is the direction you want the projectiles to travel - up. Not aiming directly towards your audience and never on its side. This is exactly what you want to avoid. Place the cake down gently on a flat surface. As flat as possible. Cakes can tip over even on the flattest surface if not properly secured, because sometimes when the cakes fire, the force from each shot pushes back on the ground to the point where the cake can tip, especially when multiple shots are fired succinctly. It’s Newton’s third law - for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When that cake fires up, it is pushing into the ground with equal force that it takes the projectile to launch into the air. So you always want to secure your cakes, even on the flattest of surfaces. I recommend going to your local hardware store and picking up a board, and gluing the bottoms of your cakes to the board to further secure them against any possible tipping. If you cannot do this, you should properly secure the cakes in another fashion, such as with bricks or rocks on their sides, buried in sand around the edges, etc. You should always surround the cake with something to prevent / prohibit it from tipping over.

Before you put on any sort of fireworks display, you should consult with your local fire authority to be sure that the fireworks can be purchased at the time you wish to purchase them, and that the fireworks can be used during that time of the year as well. Different states have different laws regarding all of this, and then you get down to the local municipalities, which have their own laws as well! So you should always consult with your local fire department before you purchase or shoot any type of firework. And, ideally, the fire department should be present during your display as well, especially for larger firework shows.

Many fire departments may require you to have specialized insurance before you conduct a fireworks display of any kind. Your local / state fire marshal will be able to fill you in more on this. But there are many insurance companies you can get fireworks display insurance from, just in case anything does go wrong. Trust me when I say, you do not want to be caught without insurance if anything bad does happen! I’d say that’s a general sentiment when it comes to just about everything nowadays.

Before starting your display, you’ll want to wet down the environment you’re conducting it in, especially if it’s been dry. You shouldn’t use fireworks near any trees, buildings, or other structures. You should use them in a wide-open environment with no obstacles nearby. And you should always be aware of the wind speed and direction as well. If the area is prone to wind gusts and there are any indications of the mere possibility, such as winds suddenly increasing or any type of wind activity more than a couple miles per hour, you should be aware of this and consider delaying or postponing your fireworks festivities.

Keep your crowd far away from the fireworks. People will always want to get up close to the action, but that actually provides a subpar viewing experience! Fireworks can shoot up hundreds of feet into the air, and if you are sitting too close to them, you are going to be straining your neck to view them as they ascend high up into the sky. Not to mention the possibility of fallout when sitting too close, which does happen. And assuming a cake somehow did tip over, you do not want to be close by in that scenario. So you should always make sure that your crowd is sitting a few hundred feet away. You’ll be able to view the fireworks comfortably without straining your neck over a prolonged period of time to look up, fallout risk at that distance will be minimal to none, especially if there are little to no winds, and if a cake did somehow manage to tip over, its projectiles are not likely to reach the audience if everyone is sitting a few hundred feet away as they should be. Consult with your local fire department about this. It’s recommended you rope off the area with caution tape to deter anyone from getting too close!

Obviously drugs and alcohol do not mix with fireworks, at all. Any intoxication of any kind cannot be tolerated when working with fireworks because they are explosives. They can be dangerous. You need your wits about you when you’re handling and firing them. Someone inebriated with drugs and/or alcohol is not going to have proper judgement to work with fireworks. Anything you smoke, obviously that’s fire, you could accidentally set off a firework when you are not ready to, so that’s a bad deal. Zero tolerance. Alcohol, while it may not be an open flame, you don’t want anyone stumbling around and making dumb decisions around fireworks.

If a firework does not go off properly the first time, you should never relight it. Wait some time to approach it, douse it with water, and ideally leave it for some time after that, until you can be absolutely sure it is safe to dispose of.

Preferably you want to be using a firing system to light off your display, because then you can have a more pleasant and suitable viewing experience as well, just like your audience! But if you are right up there close to the fireworks lighting them off by hand, you should hand-light and get away from the area before the fireworks go off!

When storing your fireworks before the display, you want to be sure you are storing them in a dry environment that is not too hot and not exposed to direct sunlight! It should be a comfortably cool environment. Then, as you move the fireworks to transport them to your display site, you want to be sure you are handling them carefully during transit. Keep in mind once again that these are explosives! You certainly don’t want to be throwing explosives around and handling them carelessly. Handle them with care at all times! Treat them delicately! And make sure they are not damaged in any way, otherwise do not light them off! Render them inert with water and dispose of them in a safe and approved manner!

These are just a few safety guidelines which should be common sense. Unfortunately not everyone seems to have that nowadays, and that is when / how / why accidents happen. But I just thought I’d come on here to make a more informal post about fireworks safety, because it really should always be your number 1 priority when using fireworks. If it’s not, you shouldn’t be using them. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Sorry for any rambling, but as someone who has been around for decades in the fireworks industry, I’ve seen and known a lot of people who unfortunately got injured by these beautiful things that we all love, because they made stupid and costly mistakes. They lost limbs, eyes. They damaged property for countless thousands of dollars. It bankrupted them. Some of them even lost their lives and/or the lives of others, and thus their freedom. Don’t be one of those people. “Don’t be that guy” as many fireworks regulatory agencies say. I really cannot stress how serious this is enough. Fireworks are a lot of fun, and we all love them, but only when handled and used correctly. It may seem like there’s a lot involved to use fireworks safely, but at a certain point it really just becomes second nature to you. The more you are around the industry and the more that you do it yourself, you tend to realize these things without even necessarily realizing them, so to speak. It becomes unconscious, if you will. Because at that point you have a conscientious awareness of fireworks safety in everything that you do, and that’s what everyone who handles fireworks - be it the average consumer or an experienced fireworks professional, should always strive for. Safety #1.

Thank you for reading. For more fireworks safety tips, please visit our Fireworks Safety page. You can also check out an even more detailed article about Fireworks Accidents and How to Prevent Them. If it isn’t obvious, fireworks safety is pretty important at Fireworks.us! You can even say it’s our number 1 priority, as it should be. And it should be yours as well.

As always, we want you to have a happy and SAFE 4th of July / New Year / fireworks display with your friends, family, and neighbors. Take care of yourself, and enjoy the show!

- KABOOM